Company considering becoming a Stonewall Champion

[MsFogi]

So my ears priced up when I heard that my company is looking at becoming a Stonewall Champion. Can anyone outline why this is a bad idea (ideally in terms that won't mean I am sacked for questioning the move!)?

Apart from the cost and the box ticking, it's the lack of equality impact assessment for implementing policy and row to all changes around toilets.

Someone will be along in a minute with more but a quick peruse of #DontSubmitToStonewall on the What Do They Know website as well as the stuff around why the LGB Alliance formed might help. There's some really interesting stuff on the FOIs...

Legal Feminist have a number of articles:
legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/02/01/submission-and-compliance/

Ah thanks R0 I didn't join the dots - it was Legal Feminist who started the FOI action wasn't it?

I'll refresh my memory with that link.

Apropos the “not like pie” argument I just read this about the effects of Edinburgh University adopting Stonewall’s policies. (This excerpt is from the legal feminist.U.K. Which was posted on another thread but I don’t know how to do links.)

“Now, it is often said by the pious that “rights aren’t pie”: that is to say, there’s no fixed quantity of “rights” so that if one group gets more, the others must get less. That’s a half-truth. Rights may not be pie, but time, attention, energy and money most definitely are pie. If University managers are pouring hours of their time into drafting and implementing Trans Equality Policies that meet with Stonewall’s approval, that’s time they won’t have spent wondering why their female staff earn less on average, or occupy more junior lectureships but fewer Chairs than their male colleagues; or checking that colleagues of a hearing-impaired member of staff know how to ensure that she is fully able to participate in meetings; or trying to work out how to eradicate the effects of unconscious racial bias in vivas or disciplinary proceedings.”

Is it really so much of an advantage to be a Stonewall Champion? If you're not sure how management are going to react I would concentrate on the fact that it is a lot of effort for little benefit.

Further description of too much pie from the legalfeminist. co.U.K. article about the problem of adopting Stonewall’s policies:

“Think back to Edinburgh University’s “Trans Inclusion Policy.” It is the only equality policy the University has which is specific to a single protected characteristic.

Imagine a substantial organisation with a staff population of 1000, which happens to be as near as possible an exact demographic mirror for the population of the UK as a whole. The total trans population of the UK is estimated to be between about 0.3% and 0.75%. of the total. About 51% of the UK population is female. About 16% of adults of working age have disabilities. About 1.3% are Hindu. About 6% have diabetes. About 3.4% of adults of working age are Black. On the basis of those percentages, our imaginary organisation employs 510 women and 490 men; 160 staff with disabilities of whom 60 have diabetes; 40 Black staff; 13 Hindus; and maybe between 3 and 8 trans staff.

Now imagine that this organisation has – like Edinburgh University – adopted a specific Trans Equality Policy (with all the training, mentoring, monitoring, social media presence, rainbow merchandise and so on that that entails). But – also like Edinburgh University – it has no similar policy or programme of activities focusing on sex, race, disability, age, religion and belief, maternity or marital status.

In other words, it has made a clear public statement about its priorities. Its 3-8 trans staff appear to be absorbing a grossly disproportionate amount of its time and attention compared to any of the other minority groups it employs – and especially as compared to its majority of 510 staff who are biological women. And many of the respects in which it has decided, at Stonewall’s instigation, to gold-plate trans rights represent blatant incursions into women’s rights in particular. In a suitable case, that statement about an organisation’s priorities could legitimately form part of the material giving rise to an inference of discrimination on grounds of sex.”

I am very sorry, I meant to post this in the other thread about Alec Cummings in the Times using the “not like pie argument”.

It is from the the link that
R0wantrees shared on this thread legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/02/01/submission-and-compliance/

Is it really so much of an advantage to be a Stonewall Champion?

It is a protection racket.

Fair Play for Women’s take:

t.co/uWWTPR5CSt?amp=1